Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Asharq al-Awsat on direct talks (Zvi)

From Zvi:

A group of Asharq al-Awsat commentators have weighed in to discuss the direct talks between Israel and the PA. It's a mixed bag of naivete, delusion, lies, hatred, skepticism, ignorance, bogus conventional wisdom, oppressive worry, realpolitik, actual wisdom and occasional flashes of insight.

Dr. Mamoun Fandy (outside of the region) presents six "signs" that make him think that Obama is optimistic about the direct talks. These are:

* There is a 1 year deadline, which he thinks indicates "at least 70%" confidence. It is hard to understand why he thinks this. Many "deadlines" have come and gone already. For example, Bibi Netanyahu froze settlements, a freeze that is intended to expire in September. Mahmoud Abbas burned an entire year and now will start negotiating just as the freeze expires, giving him an excuse to immediately quit negotiations. (Has anyone else noticed this?)

* He thinks that Sen. Mitchell's shuttle diplomacy has contributed to this confidence, and he hopes (apparently) that this will result in a historic victory for Obama entering the election season. He can keep on hoping; I see no reason why Obama administration policy vis a vis the Middle East will be any wiser than it has heretofore. Obama/Clinton/Mitchell have already nearly destroyed the peace process by encouraging Abbas to become even more uselessly intransigent, before finally backing off.

* He thinks that Obama has a blueprint that is "almost acceptable to all parties." I would like to hear what this blueprint is supposed to be; even the BBC is asking whether the administration has any plan at all, and I certainly have not heard anything that would work.

* I will actually quote the 4th "sign" because it is kind of an unusual perspective:

The fourth sign is that Israel and the United States have agreements on a number of common interests in the region. The most important of which is the stability of the Gulf region as a source of energy, preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear bomb, and peace in return for [access to] the Gulf markets – in other words, a peace agreement would open the Gulf markets to Israel, and undermine Iran's nuclear capability.

Aside from implying that Israel may actually favor stability in the Arab world (which it does, but Arab commentators either don't grasp this or rarely admit to it), he is not shying away from defining what normalization might mean. Of course, he phrases it in a way that casts it as an agreement between Israel and the US, not a proposed offer by the Arabs.

* He is encouraged by the invitation of Mubarak and King Abdullah, because

This invitation could be seen as a ‘vaccination’ or "inoculation" against the failure of the 1998 Clinton – Arafat agreement where Yasser Arafat and the Israelis reached an agreement under the auspices of former US President Bill Clinton. However as soon as Arafat arrived in Gaza and descended from his plane, he rejected the agreement. The American explanation of Arafat's sudden change of heart was that some Arab leaders convinced him that he would not be able to ‘market’ what had been agreed [to the Palestinian people], and therefore, it would be better to reject the deal and announce an Intifada which would subsequently make him a leader, and that is indeed what Arafat did.

There is an unusual amount of honesty here (give or take the erroneous date; the Arafat Intifadah did not start in 1998).

He goes on to say that

the United States will guarantee Israel's signature and actions whilst Egypt and Jordan will guarantee the Palestinian signature – which is to say guarantee that the Palestinians will not violate the principles of the agreement.

* He believes that if talks fail, the world will declare a Palestinian state, regardless, so it's in Israel's interest to make the talks succeed. But if this is the case, why would the Palestinians negotiate in good faith. Abbas will sit back and complain, throwing spanners in the works at every opportunity.

He closes by saying that the PA/Hamas division is really an Arab division, and also that Arab countries that oppose normalization talk and trade with Israel behind the scenes. "However, unfortunately, Israel today has relations with the majority of Arab states."

With this "unfortunately", as with some of his other comments, Fandy demonstrates ignorance of what makes Israel tick; Israel has always been much more ready to make concessions when approached by people who hold out their hand than it has when approached by people making threats. This error reflects the collective blind spot of most of the region's opinion shapers. It's always about threats, because the idea of making concessions in order to get what you want is anathema, and because the Arab world has never come to terms with the fact that destroying Israel is off the table. Anwar Sadat was wiser. He realized that Israeli leaders serve their people, and he realized from the moment he came to Jerusalem that in the end he would need to make sure that the Israeli people were ready to accept a deal. Three and a half decades later, the rest of the Arab world still doesn't get it.

Fayyad: PA financially independent in 2013

PA prime minister Salam Fayyad said in a speech yesterday that the PA plans to no longer be reliant on foreign aid by the end of 2013.

He did mention that their "Arab brothers" tended not to pay their pledges, although they of course remained the biggest supporters of Palestinian Arabs. Funny way they have of showing it.

The only concrete infrastructure initiative I saw him mention was a plan for 15 new schools over an unspecified time period. I have a feeling that there are more than 15 new schools in the Jewish towns of Judea and Samaria every year.

Obviously, he said nothing about dismantling "refugee" camps that are wholly in PA-run territory, or of cutting the 60% of the PA budget that goes to Gaza.

He might be a brilliant economist but the idea that, with its rotten and corrupt officials still in place, the PA would be on its feet in less than four years is a pipe-dream.

Amnesty's apology leaves a bad aftertaste

I had linked to this story about how the head of Finland's branch of Amnesty International, Frank Johansson repeatedly and unapologetically referred to Israel as a "scum state" in his blog.

Now, under pressure, Johansson has not apologized but claims it was just "poorly worded" and a "mistranslation."

As the Tundra Tabloids blog proves, however, Johansson had many opportunities to clarify his wording and he refused to do so.

A reader emails me with a response that she received from Amnesty when she complained:

Thank you for your email to Amnesty International.

The comments made by Frank Johansson in a blog on the website of the Finnish daily newspaper Iltalehti are personal comments and should not be taken to reflect those of Amnesty International, including Amnesty International Finland, or to be endorsed in any way by Amnesty International.

Amnesty International has never described Israel as a “scum state” or used such terms to describe Israel or any other state and would never do so.

Obviously, we regret not only that this term was used but also that inadequate steps were taken to make clear that Frank Johansson was expressing an entirely personal view and not speaking on behalf of Amnesty International or expressing a view which reflects in any way the view of Amnesty International. Amnesty International totally disassociates itself from the comments expressed by Mr Johansson and has made this clear to him.

We have discussed this issue with Frank Johannson. He has issued a full and open apology for his ill-judged personal comments and for the offence that his comments have caused. This was an important error of judgment but there can be no doubting Frank Johannson’s long and deep commitment to human rights and to working impartially to end human rights abuses worldwide.

Best wishes, Luna

Amnesty accepts his mealy-mouthed pseudo-apology as a "full and open apology." Of course, when the Jerusalem Post reporter asked him to clarify the statements, he made very clear that they reflected exactly how he felt about Israel. Even worse, even though Johannson is very clear about his disgust for the state of Israel, Amnesty is saying as a fact that he is impartial! Meaning that Johansson will continue to work at this formerly prestigious organization as if his personal venom towards Israel is irrelevant to his work there.

Amnesty needs to do better than that.

In some ways, this is worse that Marc Garlasco's hobby of collecting Nazi memorabilia while at HRW. That was at least separate from his activities there; it was a sick indicator of bias but not nearly as direct and explicit as Johansson's. Johannson proudly and publicly displayed his hatred of Israel on a blog where he also publicly identified with Amnesty; Garlasco did not publicize the connection between his HRW human-rights activist persona and the person who was fascinated with Nazi SS jackets and Iron Crosses.

Amnesty, as a purportedly impartial organization, should fire Johannsen immediately. If they are not going to fire someone for such a statement outright, which would already reflect badly on them, they should publicly say that he will never have the slightest input into any of Amnesty's reports about the Middle East, because of his obvious and clear bias.

But this citing of his fake apology, and the facile statement that he is impartial, casts much doubt over Amnesty's commitment to truth.

Children of IHH attackers used as props for hate

A random set of children of the IHH members who were killed while attacking Israeli troops aboard the Mavi Marmara were treated to a vacation by a Turkish charity - whose level of "charity" seems to be in line with the IHH itself, leavened with hate.

The trip was a PR stunt, where the children met with other anti-Zionist societies besides Islamic cultural sites. Even the organizers admit that the "vacation" was primarily a "message to the world" to champion the "Palestinian cause," and the children were mere props.

These "orphans" were asked to speak in front of the anti-Israel groups that hosted them, saying how their fathers were killed by "insidious Zionist occupation forces" and how they hoped to meet next year in Jerusalem.

The charity plans on further trips, this time to other countries, to spread their message of hate.

How I work

I have a simple rule when blogging: Be skeptical about anything not written by a primary source.

Here's an example, and not from the left. Going down the thread to the truth, however, often reveals other truths.

Arutz-7 has a story that starts off with:

A group of more than 150 Irish artists have pledged to boycott Israel as part of a solidarity campaign coordinated with the Palestinian Authority.

Boycott campaigns are nothing new, but it would be big news if this was done in coordination with the PA, since the Abbas regime officially says that it only boycotts the "settlers" and not the state of Israel.

Arutz-7's "proof" seems to be this statement from the Irish group:

“In response to the call from Palestinian civil society for a cultural boycott of Israel, we pledge not to avail of any invitation to perform or exhibit in Israel, nor to accept any funding from any institution linked to the government of Israel, until such time as Israel complies with international law and universal principles of human rights.”

"Palestinian civil society" is not the same as the PA.

But maybe I missed something, so I went to the IPSC website, and looked at the actual announcement. Nothing about the PA.

But perhaps they had cooperated with the PA in the past, so I looked for a search engine. They don't have one, but Google can be configured to search within only one site, so I searched for "Palestinian Authority" to see if the group ever met with officials of the PA or received any encouraging statements from the PA. I couldn't find anything.

On the contrary, I found an interview with a leader of the BDS movement answering a question as to whether the PA supports a boycott:

One has to look at it in perspective. The PA is unelected. It is there because of the US. It does not represent Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. It is complicit in Israel's oppression. It is a sub-contractor of the occupation.

The PA has engaged in a small part of the boycott of settlement products. It is the only part the Oslo accords allow for. It is a step in the right direction. If the PA had a different stand, all governments would react differently. But civil society says Israel is the oppressor, not the settlements.

Here's that term "civil society" again. Since it was used in two completely different contexts by two BDS groups, it seems that this is a keyword that they use to claim that Palestinian Arabs are behind boycotts of Israel without having to actually define the term. In fact, of course, PalArabs happily buy Israeli products, even in Gaza, when they get the chance, and the BDS movement is lying when they try to imply that Palestinian Arabs as a whole support the BDS movement.

It seems apparent that Arutz-7 is wrong in this case.

Now that we see a connection between the terms "civil society" and the BDS movement, let's see where else we can see that link. Back to Google, we find a number of disparate BDS sites that use the exact same term.

One of the earlier uses was in a 2005 BDS campaign that uses the term in its title:

Palestinian Civil Society Calls for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel
Until it Complies with International Law and Universal Principles of Human Rights
9 July 2005

...We, representatives of Palestinian civil society, call upon international civil society organizations and people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era.

In that case, they list some 150 organizations that support BDS. Most of them do not originate in Palestine: the ones that are in the territories are generally labor unions and Palestinian anti-Israel "human rights" organizations like PICCR, Addameer and Al Mezan (but not PCHR.) They do include many groups based out of Syria and Jordan as well as world-wide anti-Israel activist organizations.

We see how the BDS movement will misrepresent itself as to how aligned they are with average Palestinian Arabs, and that they disparage PalArabs who don't support the boycott by implying that they are not "civil." They are elitist by calling themselves "civil society" and they act against the wishes of the average Palestinian Arab. This is something that has happened for decades; Western reporters and diplomats accept the word of self-appointed, non-elected "leaders" whose political interests are in direct opposition to what the average Arab of Palestinian descent really wants.

America's history of Christian Zionism

From Zvi:

Christian Zionism is actually a long-standing phenomenon in the United States. It has been, for the most part, a positive and constructive movement. Many United States presidents have expressed Zionist sentiments, including John Quincy Adams, Abraham Lincoln and every US president since Woodrow Wilson, regardless of party. A few short samples (there are a lot more):

President John Q. Adams:
[I believe in the] rebuilding of Judea as an independent nation. (Letter to Major Mordecai Manuel Noah)

President Wilson:
The allied nations with the fullest concurrence of our government and people are agreed that in Palestine shall be laid the foundations of a Jewish Commonwealth. (Response to Balfour Declaration)
President Harry Truman:
I had faith in Israel before it was established, I have faith in it now. (Granting de facto recognitionto the new Jewish State—11 minutes after Israel's proclamation of independence)

John F. Kennedy:
In the prophetic spirit of Zionism all free men today look to a better world and in the experience ofZionism we know that it takes courage and perseverance and dedication to achieve it.

Back then, the word Zionism had not been turned into a swear word by anti-Semitic propagandists willing to lie, cheat, steal and threaten.

Martin Luther King, Jr was very much a Christian Zionist:

“Peace for Israel means security, and we must stand with all our might to protect her right to exist, its territorial integrity and the right to use whatever sea lanes it needs. Israel is one of the great outposts of democracy in the world, and a marvelous example of what can be done, how desert land can be transformed into an oasis of brotherhood and democracy. Peace for Israel means security, and that security must be a reality.”

So American Christian Zionists today can be proud to stand in excellent company. The same is true for Christian Zionists in other countries.

Today, Christian Zionists are probably one of the few bastions of sanity on topics related to Israel in places like Tromso, Norway.

Freedom of expression, PA-style

From Ma'an:

A conference for Palestinians angered by the governmental decision to proceed with direct peace talks was shut down by PA forces in Ramallah on Wednesday, organizers said.

Khaleda Jarrar, a candidate for Ramallah mayor with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine before President Mahmoud Abbas called off the scheduled July elections, told Ma'an that PA police "in civilian uniforms attempted to thwart the event from the start, chanting slogans and leading event participants towards the center of Ramallah."

The event was organized by leftist factions, PFLP, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Palestinian People's Party, as well as several independent politicians. Organizers said the event was set to be held alongside a similar one in Gaza City.

She said the plainclothes officers were trying to provoke participants, who were not intending to leave the conference hall but rather hold a news conference inside, where Jarrar said objectors to the talks would "express or stance against a return to negotiations."

Speaking with Ma'an by phone from Ramallah, Jarrar said she held the PA "completely responsible" for the events of the day. "We aimed to voice our dissent, and the PA decided to enter the conference hall and drag participants out to an unplanned rally" in order to quash it.

A statement from the government-affiliated Watan TV station said network cameramen were assaulted and their equipment confiscated.

of course, the accusers are liars as well, so it is tough to know who to believe.

Midweek links

Snow Business Like Shmo Business – Jon Snow treads the boards with Ha'aretz' Gideon Levy

Finland's Amnesty chairman: "Israel is a scum state"

And Zionist group Z-Street is suing the IRS for not giving them non-profit status - and here's why, according to their complaint:

21. Agent Gentry also informed Z STREET’s counsel that the IRS is carefully scrutinizing organizations that are in any way connected with Israel.

22. Agent Gentry further stated to counsel for Z STREET: “these cases are being sent to a special unit in the D.C. office to determine whether the organization's activities contradict the Administration's public policies.”

23. Z STREET, and its President, Lori Lowenthal Marcus, have publicly taken positions on issues relating to Israel that are inconsistent with positions taken by the Obama administration.

24. The IRS’s admissions by Agent Gentry make clear that the IRS maintains an Israel Special Policy governing the processing of applications for tax exemption by organizations which are believed to be operated by persons holding political views inconsistent with those espoused by the Obama administration, and that the Israel Special Policy mandates that such applications be scrutinized differently and at greater length, and therefore that they take longer to process than those made by organizations without that characteristic, or even that the tax-exempt application might be denied altogether on that basis.

Another view of Christian Zionist attitudes towards Jews

Received via email:

I would like to contribute a personal view (from the Jewish side) of how Christians view Jews.

I grew up in Washington State and did my college work [in a small town] there. Although Seattle had about 10,000 Jews at the time and the town supported a small shul, for many of my classmates I was the first non-Christian they had ever known. These were sincere, believing Christians who took their faith seriously. They believed that "no man comes unto the Father but by me", which they took to mean that anyone who was not a Christian was condemned to Hell.

Before they met me, this had not bothered them much, because they had never needed to think about it. Once they knew me, they were forced to confront the consequences of this belief. Although I am very far from being a saint, I think I can claim that I am not that much worse than the average person. My friends did not find in me enough wickedness to merit damnation.

So they were stuck with a real dilemma - a tenet of their faith, damnation for non-Christians, contradicted their belief that a loving god could not condemn to eternal punishment anyone who was not clearly evil.

Most of my friends were good people whose faith added to their goodness. A few were basically unpleasant people whose faith put a veneer of niceness over the basic unpleasantness.

The ones who were basically nice people came to the conclusion that, since I was not that much worse than the average run of mankind, I would convert at some time in my life of my own free will. They were willing to leave this conversion until the time of my death, when Jesus came down in all his glory to give me one last chance. They put no pressure on me to convert - they felt that this could be safely left in god's hand. (A good friend of my mother's solved this dilemma a different way - she believed that "Lord", when used in prayer, referred to Jesus, so that my mother prayed to Jesus (and was saved) whether Mother knew it or not.)

The ones who were basically not-nice people came to the conclusion that I was out of luck. I was damned to eternal punishment.

Christian Zionists, by and large, appear to belong to the first school of thought. They are convinced that, in god's good time, Jews will accept Jesus as the messiah. But they know that god's time is not man's time and, until god himself moves, they will do the best they can for their beloved Jewish brothers.

I am willing to accept with gratitude (and I will try to return) the love and kindness they give.

Latest anti-semitic "news" site linked to by Google News

I know it is a losing battle, but I just complained to Google about another anti-semitic article that was linked to by Google News.

The link is http://www.intifada-palestine.com/2010/08/gaza-zionism-and-world-domination-origins-of-zionist-ideology/ (I don't want to hotlink.)

If you want to complain to Google, go here.

"Christian Zionists...express a genuine love and care for Jews"

Right on the heels of my article about James Carroll's piece in the Boston Globe on Christian Zionists, Slate has a fascinating article by a skeptical Jew who has been won over by them.

If they're not doing it for a right-wing agenda, a missionary agenda, or an apocalyptic agenda, just why are Christians uniting for Israel?

It's because they love Jews. When I went to cover 2008's CUFI Washington Summit, the first person I met shook my hand and told me she loved me for being a Jew. It's happened to me at least dozens of times since. Ask any cross-section of Christian Zionists why they support Israel, and most of the time the first line out of their mouths will be citing Genesis 12:3, in which God says to Abraham, "I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse."
The more you dig into Christian Zionism, the more you realize it's less about Israel than it is about the Jews. There's plenty of talk about current events and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but the repeated mentions of anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, and other episodes of Jewish persecution are often more prominent. In fact, Christian Zionists say they are primarily concerned about Jewish welfare and have tackled Israel advocacy simply because it's the issue on which they feel their political assistance is most valuable.

Jewish readers may be wondering how I could be so credulous. I've thought about that question a lot; there's certainly plenty of history of Jews being told one thing only to get slammed in the other direction. The simple reality of Christian Zionism is that the facts are different from many Jews' assumptions (and then for some Jews aware of the facts, there's still a tendency to resort to extreme conspiracy theories or strained arguments about Jewish continuity). There's no question that they have different politics, rhetoric, and even culture from what we're used to seeing in the Jewish world. But they do seem to express a genuine love and care for Jews. "Being loved" is not something Jews take to easily (or, at least, this Jew doesn't), and it's still pretty awkward for me in personal conversations with Christians—but, awkwardness aside, this palpable sense of concern for Jewish welfare is the first that Jews have felt from such a large religious group in their history.

Read the whole thing.

Moderate PA honors architect of Olympic massacre

From Palestinian Media Watch:

On Sept. 5, 1972, eight members of the Palestinian terror organization Black September broke into the athletes' village at the Munich Olympics. They kidnapped and ultimately murdered 11 Israeli athletes and coaches.

After Amin Al-Hindi, one of the senior planners of the terror operation, died this week, the Palestinian Authority glorified him and his terror attack. The official PA daily described his participation in the Olympic massacre, saying he was "one of the stars who sparkled... at the sports stadium in Munich." The attack itself was referred to as "just one of many shining stations" in his life.

The PA daily reports that Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad were at the funeral, where "a red carpet was laid out for the arrival of the body, and the military band played the final farewell melody."

The following are three articles in the official PA daily, describing the honoring of the terrorist who planned the Olympic massacre:

"On Wednesday I felt sad to the point of choking, because my friend Amin Al-Hindi, a national leader with a full resume, returned to Gaza to be buried in its ground...

Amin Al-Hindi, gentle as a morning breeze, was strong inside and as unyielding as granite rock. Perhaps this quality - the power raging beneath the calm surface - is what turned him into one of the prominent members of Fatah in Germany, and led him in the direction of the difficult tasks which require quiet people of this sort, who don't like tumult and who make full use of all the wisdom, imagination and planning [ability] that Allah has given them for the purpose of completing their difficult tasks...

Everyone knows that Amin Al-Hindi was one of the stars who sparkled at one of the stormiest points on the international level - the operation that was carried out at the [Olympics] sports stadium in Munich, Germany, in 1972. That was just one of many shining stations."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Aug. 20,2010]

"Secretary General of the President's office, Al-Tayeb Abd Al-Rahim, delivered a speech in which he praised the good qualities of the deceased. He stressed that the loss of Al-Hindi is a great loss to the Palestinian people, who have lost a prominent national leader.
Abd Al-Rahim noted that the deceased had been taught by the founders of the Palestinian dream, and was a member of the founding generation of the [Palestinian] revolutionary movement... The Secretary General of the Presidential office said: 'We shall continue in the path of the Shahid (Martyr) Yasser Arafat and his fellow Shahids, such as Amin Al-Hindi, until the realization of the dream of establishing an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.'"
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Aug. 19, 2010]

"The Palestinian leadership, along with President Mahmoud Abbas, parted yesterday from the body of the Fatah leader and fighter patriot Amin Al-Hindi. This was at an imposing official military funeral that was held at the [PA] headquarters to bid farewell to the Shahid (Martyr)...
Present at the headquarters for the farewell ceremony and for the official military funeral, along with the President [Abbas], were Prime Minister Dr. Salam Fayyad; Secretary General of the Presidential office, Al-Tayeb Abd Al-Rahim; members of the PLO Executive Council and of the Fatah Central Committee; several ministers, commanders of security forces, senior civic and military personnel, as well as relatives of the deceased.
The body of Al-Hindi, which was wrapped in shrouds, arrived draped with the Palestinian flag and was borne on the shoulders of his [metaphorical] sons - officers of the Guard of Honor at the presidential headquarters. A red carpet was laid out for the arrival of the body, and the military band played the final farewell melody. A squad from the Guard of Honor fired 21 shots. President Abbas and the participants at the funeral cast a final parting look at the body, and laid wreaths. Afterwards, the President and those present read the opening sura [of the Quran] for the elevation of his pure soul."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Aug. 19, 2010]

Not only Abbas but even Fayyad, that darling of the West for being the most moderate Palestinian Arab leader ever, honored the memory of one of the most notorious terrorists in history.

Latest Arab rumor: Blackberry a CIA-Mossad plot!

Ammon News, a Jordanian newspaper, exposes the frightening truth: that Blackberry uses jointly developed CIA-Mossad technology to read everyone's emails and messages!

And they have ironclad proof. You see, Blackberry is based out of Canada. The reason? Because if it was based out of the US or Israel, then people wouldn't trust it! Therefore, it must have been created by Jews and Americans who were intent on hiding its true origins, and Canada is the perfect country to install this nefarious spy network, because no one would suspect it. QED.

The article goes on to say that Blackberry agreed to have Israel monitor its messages, but denied Saudi Arabia's request to do the same.

(The latest information I have is that RIM does or will soon allow monitoring in Saudi Arabia, India, Russia and China, and I have no information about Israel, but that's why we need hard-hitting analyses by places like the Ammon News to set us straight.)

The article goes on to reveal that Hilary Clinton is planning to pressure the Gulf states not to ban the Blackberry, so that the Mossad can continue unfettered access to everyone's messages.

I'm glad we have such great investigative reporting in Arabic-speaking countries. How else would we know about these sorts of stories?

Press freedoms get more restricted in Syria, Jordan

Al Quds al Arabi reports on Syrian threats to shut down many periodicals.

The official reason is that the publications that say they are weekly or biweekly or monthly often miss their deadlines because of a severe shortage of advertisers. The official goal of the new rule is to force publications to meet their schedules.

Although Al Quds does not ascribe any political motives to this threat, one could imagine that the private Syrian periodicals are the ones that have the cash-flow and timing problems, not the government papers and magazines.

Meanwhile, in Jordan, a new law that was ostensibly meant to crack down on cyber-crimes includes provisions that would seriously impact what news may be reported.

According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists,

[T]he law provides authorities with sweeping powers to restrict the flow of information and limit public debate. Article 8 penalizes "sending or posting data or information via the Internet or any information system that involves defamation or contempt or slander," without defining what constitutes those crimes. Article 12 penalizes obtaining "data or information not available to the public, concerning national security or foreign relations of the kingdom, public safety or the national economy" from a website without a permit. Article 13 allows for law enforcement officers to search the offices of websites and access their computers without prior approval from public prosecutors.

Jews put poisoned food in their supermarkets!

The Arab press is reporting that three Palestinian Arabs have been "poisoned" by buying expired meat from an Israeli Rami Levy supermarket in the West Bank.

Firas Press says "Beware!!" while quoting an Arab official as saying

"The products sold by Rami Levy lack quality, and many of them are sold at ridiculous prices because of they are close to expiring, in particular meat products and canned food. The PA consumer protection employees will monitor Palestinian shoppers of Rami Levy and will publish lists of their names and they are subject to legal accountability."

The PA first threatened shoppers at Rami Levy last May.

But isn't it an amazing coincidence that only Arab shoppers are getting allegedly "poisoned" by this supposedly bad, no doubt kosher, meat?

It's sort of like the Zionist attack pigs who know to only attack Arabs and leave Jews alone. The poison must be triggered by the existence of an Arab genetic marker in the victim's saliva. Yeah, that's it.